Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born February 20, 1988), known mononymously as Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers. She subsequently signed a contract with Def Jam Recordings.

In 2005, Rihanna released her debut studio album, Music of the Sun, which peaked in the top ten of the Billboard 200 chart and features the Billboard Hot 100 top-five hit single "Pon de Replay". In less than a year, she released her second studio album, A Girl Like Me (2006), which peaked within the top-five of the Billboard albums chart, and produced her first Hot 100 number one single, "SOS". Rihanna's third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad released in May 2007, spawned the international hit singles "Umbrella", "Don't Stop the Music", "Take a Bow" and "Disturbia". The album was nominated for nine Grammy Awards, winning Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Umbrella". Her fourth studio album Rated R (2009), produced the top-ten singles "Russian Roulette", "Hard" and "Rude Boy", with the later achieving the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Loud (2010), Rihanna's fifth studio album, spawned the number-one hits "Only Girl (In the World)", "What's My Name?" and "S&M". "We Found Love" served as the lead single from Talk That Talk, Rihanna's sixth studio album, released in November 2011. The song was international success and topped the charts in over twenty countries.

Rihanna's work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including two Brit Awards, five American Music Awards, six Grammy Awards and 18 Billboard Music Awards. Billboard named Rihanna the Digital Songs Artist of the 2000s decade, and ranked her as the 17th Artist of the same decade. She is the youngest solo artist in Billboard charts history to achieve eleven number-one singles on the Hot 100. As of January 2012, Rihanna had sold approximately 47.6 million digital singles in the United States, making her the highest-selling digital artist in the US since 2004. By September 2011 she had also shipped 7.3 million album units in the US. Rihanna has sold more than 20 million albums and 60 million singles which makes her one of the best selling artists of all time.

Early Life

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados, to Monica Braithwaite, a retired accountant, and Ronald Fenty, a warehouse supervisor for a garment factory. Her mother, a native of Guyana, is Afro-Guyanese, and her father is of Barbadian and Irish descent. The eldest of three siblings, Rihanna has two brothers, Rorrey and Rajad Fenty. She also has two half-sisters and a half-brother from her father's side, each born by different mothers before Rihanna's father married her mother. Rihanna grew up listening to reggae music, and began singing at around the age of seven. Her childhood was deeply affected by her father's addiction to crack cocaine, alcohol, and marijuana, and her parents' turbulent marriage ended when she was 14. She grew up in a three-bedroom bungalow in Bridgetown and sold clothes with her father on a street stall. She attended Charles F. Broome Memorial Primary School and then the Combermere High School, where she formed a musical trio with two of her classmates. Rihanna was an army cadet in a sub-military programme that trained with the military of Barbados and fellow Barbadian and singer-songwriter Shontelle was her drill sergeant. Although she initially wanted to graduate from high school, she chose to pursue her musical career instead.